A switched reluctance machine has an array of poles attached to a stationary holding member to form a stator. The stator has no back-iron. The machine has two arrays of rotor poles, positioned on either side of the stator poles, and circumferentially aligned with each other. When a pair of rotor poles is aligned with a stator pole, a small airgap is formed at each end of the stator pole, across which flux can be driven to produce torque in a rotary arrangement or force in a linear arrangement. When the poles are in the unaligned position, the phase inductance is very low.
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1. A reluctance machine including
a stator and
a rotor arranged for rotation relative to the stator about an axis and having an inner rotor portion and an outer rotor portion, the inner rotor portion having inner rotor poles projecting outwards from an inner core portion, and the outer rotor portion having a corresponding outer rotor pole for each inner rotor pole, the outer rotor poles projecting inwards from an outer core portion, thereby defining a gap of circumferentially varying radial width between the inner and outer rotor portions,
wherein the stator has stator poles circumferentially disposed within the gap, each stator pole having an inner stator pole face facing the inner rotor portion and an outer stator pole face facing the outer rotor portion.
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11. A machine as claimed in
wherein the stator has further stator poles circumferentially disposed within the further gap, each further stator pole having an inner stator pole face facing the further inner rotor portion and an outer stator pole face facing the further outer rotor portion.
12. A machine as claimed in
13. A machine as claimed in
14. A machine as claimed in
15. A machine as claimed in
16. A machine as claimed in
17. A machine as claimed in
18. A machine as claimed in
19. A machine as claimed in
20. A stator for a reluctance machine as claimed in
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The present invention generally relates to the design of electrical machines and in particular reluctance machines. It is particularly suited to switched reluctance machines.
The switched reluctance machine (whether operating as a motor or as a generator) is a form of variable reluctance machine. The characteristics and operation of switched reluctance systems are well known in the art and are described in, for example, “The characteristics, design and application of switched reluctance motors and drives” by Stephenson and Blake, PCIM'93, Nürnberg, 21-24 Jun. 1993, incorporated herein by reference. A general treatment of the drives can also be found in various textbooks, e.g. “Electronic Control of Switched Reluctance Machines” by T J E Miller, Newnes, 2001.
The switching must be correctly synchronized to the angle of rotation of the rotor for proper operation of the drive, and a rotor position detector 15 is typically employed to supply signals corresponding to the angular position of the rotor. Sensorless techniques for determining rotor position are also known to the person of ordinary skill in the art. Thus, the rotor position detector 15 may take many forms, including that of a software algorithm, and its output may also be used to generate a speed feedback signal. The presence of the position detector and the use of an excitation strategy which is completely dependent on the instantaneous position of the rotor leads to the generic description of “rotor position switched” for these machines.
One of the many known converter topologies is shown in
A cross-section of a typical 3-phase switched reluctance machine is shown in
The phase inductance cycle of a switched reluctance machine is the period of the variation of inductance for the, or each, phase, for example between maxima when the rotor poles and the relevant respective stator poles are fully aligned. Typically, the rotor and the stator have the same axial length and the flux paths within them are notionally the same at any cross-section along that axial length. The axial lengths of the cores are often denoted as the ‘active length’ of the machine, the end-turns of the windings lying outside the active length at both ends of the machine.
The machine shown in
It is well-known that the output of this type of machine is a function of, inter alia, the difference between the inductance in the aligned position (
Electrical machines in general are constructed from laminations of electrical sheet steel, the resulting structure being used to carry the magnetic flux on which the machine depends for its operation. The structure is laminated to reduce the effect of eddy currents, which flow in the steel due to the time rate of change of the flux. Usually only machines with unvarying flux have unlaminated structures. For example, the field structure of a dc machine can be unlaminated (i.e. solid), though even in these machines a laminated structure is often adopted in order to reduce the transient response when moving to a new operating condition. The degree of lamination is influenced by the frequency of flux variation in the machine. For example, in a machine energized directly from the 50 or 60 Hz mains supply and operating at, say, 1500 or 1800 rev/min, a lamination thickness of 0.50 or 0.65 mm is often adopted. For a machine operating on a 400 Hz supply and running at 12000 rev/min, a lamination thickness of 0.20 mm might be selected.
Of course, the decreasing lamination thickness brings many disadvantages, not least in terms of cost of material and of manufacturing difficulty, but the designer is usually prepared to accept these handicaps in order to gain the benefits of reduced eddy current loss, higher efficiency and higher specific output.
The output of the machine is also dependent on the so-called magnetizing characteristic of the steel used. This is the relationship between the magnetizing effort applied to the steel (i.e. the magneto motive force, mmf) and the flux consequently produced. While there is a range of grades of steel from which the designer can choose, all of them have the same general feature in that the initial, generally linear, relationship between mmf and flux gradually deteriorates with increasing mmf to the point of significant non-linearity. In practical terms, this represents a limit on the amount of flux that the steel can usefully carry—a state generally described as “saturated”, though this is not a particularly descriptive term, as there is no sharp cut-off in the relationship.
This magnetizing characteristic of the steel becomes inseparably interrelated with the ideal characteristics of any machine in which the steel is used. For example, in a switched reluctance machine, the ideal inductance profile (discussed in the Stephenson paper above and shown in
In general, the designers of electrical machines are under great pressure to design smaller and less costly machines to meet ever more demanding performance specifications. Size is important because it generally relates to both weight and cost, parameters which are important in the fields of, for example, aerospace and automobiles where fuel consumption is increasingly regarded as a major issue. At first sight, reducing the size for a given performance is simply achieved by working the steel harder, i.e. making it carry more flux in the given volume. Inspection of the curves of
U.S. Pat. No. 5,828,153 (McClelland), incorporated herein by reference, discloses a rotor of laminated material in a particular type of switched reluctance machine with an external rotor.
Attempts to reduce Lmin by changing the direction of the flux path are generally hampered by the need to laminate the material to contain the losses. US Patent Application No 2004/0070301 (Mecrow), incorporated herein by reference, discloses an arrangement of rotor segments which have to be assembled on a shaft. These systems inevitably introduce mechanical complexity into the rotor design.
Attempts have been made to use pairs of conventional stators and rotors acting in consort to improve performance. For example, JP 07163105 by Deguchi uses two stators, each with their own windings, which share the same back-iron flux paths and co-operate with two commonly connected rotors. Vibration of the stator assembly is said to be controlled by exciting an outer one of the two stator windings based on a signal from an accelerometer. A different arrangement in Luk et al (Yokeless switched reluctance motors, PESC 2006, Power Electronics Specialists Conference, Jeju, South Korea, 18-22 Jun. 2006) uses pairs of laminated, C-core shaped assemblies arranged about a ring of rotor poles to provide a motor for an electric vehicle.
There is therefore an ongoing need for a cost-effective rotor design which reduces Lmin without significantly reducing Lmax.
Soft magnetic composite (SMC) material is a magnet sable material based on iron powder. It is generally pressed into the required finished shape rather than being punched and/or machined. Developments in powder metallurgy techniques have produced bonding agents which coat the iron powder and keep the resistivity high, so that the eddy currents in the material are reduced when the material is exposed to time varying flux. The material can be placed into a die and pressed to form the required component at pressures up to 800 MPa. The resulting components are then subjected to heat treatment at temperatures up to 500° C. A summary of material properties is given in “Soft Magnetic Composites—Materials and Applications”, Hultman & Jack, IEMDC Conference, Madison, Wis., USA, 1-4 Jun. 2003, Vol 1, pp 516-523, which is incorporated herein by reference.
In recent years, prototype designs have been proposed for permanent magnet, synchronous and reluctance machines which employ SMC material in some parts of the magnetic circuit. For example, “An Iron Composite Based Switched Reluctance Machine”, Alakula et al, Stockholm Power Tech, 18-22 Jun. 1995, Vol 3, pp 251-255, incorporated herein by reference, replaces the conventional laminations with SMC material, keeping the basic magnetic geometry unchanged. This project, however, failed to demonstrate any advantage over a conventional machine. A similar approach was taken in the work reported in “Design of a High Speed Switched Reluctance Generator for Aircraft Applications”, Duhayon et al, ICEM 2002, International Conference on Electrical Machines, 25-28 Aug. 2002, Brugge, Belgium, incorporated herein by reference. In general, it has been the intention of these designers to produce an item at least partly in SMC that is a mechanical, as well as functional, equivalent of a pre-existing rotor.
The inventors have appreciated that the application of SMC to switched reluctance structures requires a radical change in the conventional shapes of the stator and rotor in order to exploit the properties of the material and produce an improved machine.
The present invention is defined in the accompanying independent claims. Preferred features of the invention are recited in the claims respectively dependent thereon.
A reluctance machine according to embodiments of the invention comprises a stator and rotor arranged for rotation relative to the stator about an axis. The rotor has an inner rotor portion and an outer rotor portion. The inner rotor portion has outwardly projecting inner rotor poles and the outer rotor portion has inwardly projecting outer rotor poles, projecting from a respective inner and outer core portion. Thus, a gap of circumferentially varying radial width is defined between the inner and outer rotor portions. The stator has stator poles circumferentially disposed within the gap and each stator pole has an inner stator pole face facing the inner rotor portion and an outer stator pole face facing the outer rotor portion.
In can be seen that embodiments of the invention therefore provide a novel topology for a reluctance machine, such as switched reluctance machine, which has dual radial air gaps, one air gap on each side of the stator pole. Accordingly, the total flux path through air is twice as large as if only one of the inner or outer core portions were present and, hence, the difference between Lmin and Lmax is relatively increased, resulting in improved torque production as explained above.
A first torque generating flux path is defined by a pair of stator poles, a pair of inner rotor poles and a pair of corresponding outer rotor poles, a portion of the outer core portion and a portion of the inner core portion. A further torque generating flux path, perpendicular to the first one may be defined by each stator pole, an inner rotor pole, a corresponding outer rotor pole, a portion of the outer core portion, a portion of the inner core portion and a portion of an end portion connecting the inner and outer core portions.
The stator poles may be secured to a holding structure, for example by securing a feature of each stator pole to the holding structure. The holding structure may substantially consist of non-magnetic material, thereby, in effect, eliminating any leakage flux into the holding structure. Torque-generating flux paths through the stator may be substantially limited to the stator poles.
One or both of the stator poles and rotor may include or be manufactured from soft magnetic composite material, conveniently allowing the required shapes to be formed in a mould.
In some embodiments, a machine may, in effect, comprise two machines as described above mounted back to back. For example, the machine may have further inner and outer rotor portions defining a further gap of circumferentially varying radial widths. Likewise, such a machine has further stator poles circumferentially disposed within the further gap such that the inner and outer stator poles faces of each stator pole face, respectively, further inner and outer rotor poles. Specifically, all rotor portions may be connected by a common end portion connecting the further inner core portion, the further outer core portion, the inner core portion and the outer core portion. This allows the (in effect) two rotors of the machine to be manufactured as a single motor component in one piece. Alternatively, the two rotors may be defined by a separate rotor component each. This allows the two rotors to be mounted with the respective gaps facing each other and the stator poles to be supported on a common, central holding structure. A stator pole and a corresponding further stator pole may be provided by a single stator pole member extending into each gap, on either side of the central holding structure. Conveniently, this allows the two stator poles of each stator pole member to be energized by a single winding linking the stator pole member.
The two rotors may be disposed in a fixed relationship to each other, for example by fixedly securing them to a common shaft. The poles of the two rotors may then be circumferentially offset relative to each other, which can lead to torque smoothing as the torque profile of one rotor fills in troughs in the torque profile of the other rotor. Alternatively, the two rotors may be rotatable relative to each other, allowing them to run at different speeds or in different directions.
Other aspects and advantages of the invention will become apparent upon reading the following detailed description of exemplary embodiments of the invention and upon reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:
In order to achieve a large reduction of Lmin (and hence increase the torque produced for a given excitation), the invention uses an entirely new topology for the stator and rotor. Instead of the stator having a back-iron from which poles extend, the stator poles are isolated magnetic components. To hold them in their desired spatial locations, they are mounted to a stationary holding structure. The holding structure may or may not be ferromagnetic, but is not designed to carry any of the main working flux of the machine.
It is possible to combine all the stator poles and the holding structure into one molded component, though this may make the assembling of coils to the structure more expensive. A choice would be made by evaluating the options for any particular design.
In order to provide a flux path to both ends of the stator poles, the rotor has features which co-operate with the stator poles to provide a low reluctance flux path in the aligned positions and to provide a very high reluctance path in the unaligned positions.
A first embodiment of a stator is shown in
A first embodiment of a rotor 70 is shown in
While the rotor can be made from individual pieces and fastened together, it is preferable to mould the entire rotor from SMC. However, in some embodiments, the outer core 75 and inner core 71 are made from separate pieces and fastened together, for example by securing each core separately to the rotatable shaft, so that the outer core 75 and the inner core 71 are disposed in a fixed relationship relative to each other. In some embodiments, the rotor poles are made from individual pieces fastened to the rotor. It is emphasized that, whatever method of construction is chosen, the rotor shown in
In use, the phase windings can be connected to a power source via power switches, under the control of a system using rotor position feedback, as typically shown in
While the rotor is described as being moulded from SMC it could be formed in other ways, such as machining. Likewise, the material can be any unlaminated magnet sable material other than the Somaloy™500 described.
The number of poles and the number of rotor poles and the number of phases can be chosen according to established design rules in the art. For example, the Stephenson paper cited above describes design rules which guide the designer in these choices. The invention is not limited to the exemplary 12 stator pole/8 rotor pole/3 phase arrangement described above. Likewise, not every stator pole needs to have an associated coil and a single coil may generate flux in more than one stator pole. The coil can extend over only a portion of the radial extent of the stator pole.
Another embodiment is shown in
The phase windings associated with the arrays of stator poles 90, 91 can be supplied from the same power converter, in which case the arrays of stator poles on the holding member 92 should be circumferentially aligned and the arrays of rotor poles on the two rotors 93, 94 should also be circumferentially aligned. In use, the two rotors would contribute equally to torque production at the same instants. In this embodiment, the pairs of poles on either side of the holding member 92 can have a single coil 99 spanning the two poles and the two poles can be combined into one unit 98, as shown in
In another embodiment, the array of stator poles 90, 91 are circumferentially offset from each other by an angle and the array of rotor poles on the two rotors 93, 94 are circumferentially offset from each other by the same angle.
In other embodiments, the arrays of stator poles 90, 91 can be supplied from two different power converters. One of these embodiments uses identical windings on the arrays of stator poles and identical power converters, but the arrays of poles are mutually circumferentially displaced and the power converters are operated with a corresponding phase difference, so that the torque contributions from the two rotors are displaced in time. This can be used to modify the angular profile of the torque generated by the machine, e.g. the torque ripple may be reduced. In another embodiment, the power converters are supplied from different voltages and the windings of the two arrays of stator poles have different numbers of turns in the coils. This allows excitation of the machine from two separate voltage sources, either separately or simultaneously.
In another embodiment, shown in cross section in
In other embodiments, a single array of stator poles is arranged to co-operate with two rotors which are individually mounted on two shafts and are free to rotate independently of each other. One such arrangement is shown in
In one embodiment, the rotor and stator pole numbers are equal, giving a 1-phase arrangement. All the stator poles are excited simultaneously but, if the rotors are placed in correct starting positions, the rotors will rotate in opposite directions. Many such techniques exist for ensuring the correct initial position, mainly based of the use of starting magnets, e.g. as in EP 0735651 or EP 0601818. In another embodiment, the stator pole number is twice the rotor pole number and the windings are grouped into two phases. Since the direction of starting of a 2-phase switched reluctance machine can be determined by profiling the rotor pole face, the pole faces of the two rotor pole arrays can be profiled in opposite directions, thus allowing the rotors to start in opposite directions.
In all of these embodiments the machine can operate with the stator poles magnetically isolated from each other, unlike conventional machine topologies where the poles extend from a ferromagnetic back iron.
While the invention has been described in terms of a rotating machine, the invention is equally applicable to a linear machine having a stator in the form of a track and a moving part moving on it. The word “rotor” is used in the art to refer to the movable part of both rotating and linear machines and is to be construed herein in this way. Similarly, terms like “circumferential”, “radial”, “outer” and “inner” are to be construed accordingly as “along the track”, “across the track” and “either side of the track”. Accordingly, the above description of several embodiments is made by way of example and not for the purposes of limitation to rotating systems.
The skilled person will appreciate that variations of the disclosed arrangements are possible without departing from the invention. Accordingly, the above description of several embodiments is made by way of example and not for the purposes of limitation. It will be clear to the skilled person that minor modifications can be made to the arrangements without significant changes to the operation described above. The present invention is intended to be limited only by the scope of the following claims.
Sykes, Paul Andrew, Dickinson, Phillip George
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Feb 22 2010 | DICKINSON, PHILLIP GEORGE | Switched Reluctance Drives Limited | ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS | 024067 | /0439 | |
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